[ Today's Readings ]
If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love,
just as I have kept my Father’s commandments
and remain in his love.
But why commandments? Are they arbitrary? Are they just ways we prove ourselves to you? By keeping them do we earn your love? Well, clearly not. You tell us that we can remain in your love not that we can ever get there on our own. We "are saved the through the grace of the Lord Jesus". Keeping the commandments is only possible because you first love us. And the goal of these commandments is not arbitrary. It isn't to do something for you, Jesus, who exist in the perfect bliss of Trinitarian love and need nothing. It is for our own sakes that you give us these commandments.
“I have told you this so that
my joy might be in you and
your joy might be complete.”
Your call on us to be good is at one and the same time your call to choose the one who alone is good, God himself (see Mark 10:18). This is why the commandments bring us joy. This is why they make us remain in your love.
What does receiving this love look like? The usual way involves "signs and wonders" so that our belief might rest on the power of God rather than human wisdom (see First Corinthians 2:5). The supernatural outpouring of the Holy Spirit is the source of these signs and wonders. It is him who empowers us to keep the commandments, purifying our hearts by faith.
And God, who knows the heart,
bore witness by granting them the Holy Spirit
just as he did us.
He made no distinction between us and them,
for by faith he purified their hearts.
Jesus, you want us to remain in your love. You want this anointing of the Holy Spirit to be ongoing in our lives. You want to favor your people with signs and wonders and to continue to purify our hearts until we can see you clearly, for it is only the pure of heart who see God (see Matthew 5:8). This is so essential because this is how you rebuild the fallen hut of David from its ruins and raise it up again. It is the Spirit dwelling in us the erects this new temple. And it is only when we shine with this light that humanity "may seek out the Lord, even all the Gentiles on whom" the name of God is invoked.
Let's stop troubling ourselves and others about inconsequential details that pertain more to self-image than to reality. Let's find the spout where the grace comes out, as they say, and plant ourselves underneath.
Sing to the LORD a new song;
sing to the LORD, all you lands.
Sing to the LORD; bless his name.
Announce his salvation, day after day.
Tell his glory among the nations;
among all peoples, his wondrous deeds.
Say among the nations: The LORD is king.
He has made the world firm, not to be moved;
he governs the peoples with equity.
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